Donald Trump stirred controversy on Saturday when he appeared to use the shooting death of a cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade in his attempt to attract African American voters.

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Nykea Aldridge, 32 and a mother of four, was pushing a baby stroller in Chicago’s South Side Parkway Gardens neighborhood on Friday when she was shot in the head and arm during an exchange of gunfire between two men.

In response, Wade said on Twitter: “My cousin was killed today in Chicago. “Another act of senseless gun violence. 4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON. Unreal. #EnoughisEnough.”

On Saturday morning, the Republican nominee for president misspelled Wade’s first name when he used Twitter to say: “Dwayne [sic] Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”

Trump’s comment, which was widely viewed as insensitive and self-serving, was deleted three hours after it was published. The same statement then appeared again, with Wade’s name spelled correctly.

Donald Trump’s original tweet about the shooting death of Dwyane Wade’s cousin. Photograph: Screengrab

At the end of a week in which Trump has sought to broadcast his law and order-based message to African American voters – among whom support for his candidacy has been as low as 0% in some opinion polls – the tweets prompted outcry on social media.

The actor Don Cheadle was among those criticizing Trump. In a series of his own Twitter messages, the star of the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead blasted the businessman for using the Aldridge’s death to throw “red meat to his alt-right troglodytes”.

“People of Drumpf’s ilk are contributors to the conditions that lead to the ‘Chicagos’ of this country,” Cheadle said in one tweet, referring to the surname of Trump’s German ancestors and the gun violence which has plagued Chicago and other cities and on which Trump has played in speeches aimed at African American voters.

DWade (@DwyaneWade)

The city of Chicago is hurting. We need more help& more hands on deck. Not for me and my family but for the future of our world. The YOUTH!

Erica L Smegielski, a gun control campaigner who is the daughter of a teacher killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut in December 2012, tweeted: “Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was my mother. Nykea Aldridge was a child’s mother. How dare you use our pain to win votes.”

Wade did not address Trump’s remarks directly, instead saying in a series of tweets: “RIP Nykea Aldridge... #EnoughIsEnough. The city of Chicago is hurting. We need more help& more hands on deck. Not for me and my family but for the future of our world. The YOUTH! These young kids are screaming for help!!! #EnoughIsEnough.”

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Wade’s use of the #EnoughIsEnough hashtag echoed his appearance at the ESPY sports awards in Los Angeles last month. Then, he stood with fellow NBA stars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul to deliver statements against gun violence.

Trump was on his way to Iowa, where addressed a Republican fundraiser. As criticism of his comments mounted, he released a further tweet. It said: “My condolences to Dwyane Wade and his family, on the loss of Nykea Aldridge. They are in my thoughts and prayers.”

In Des Moines, he told a largely white crowd at Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride the death of Nykea Aldridge “breaks our hearts. This shouldn’t happen in America.”

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

My condolences to Dwyane Wade and his family, on the loss of Nykea Aldridge. They are in my thoughts and prayers.

The Republican nominee has made inner-city gun violence and the promise of law and order a central plank of his campaign. In his speech to the party convention in Cleveland in July, he said: “In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 people have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since [Barack Obama] took office.”

According to the Chicago police department, homicides are up 49% this year, at 441 as of Monday. Chicago recorded 473 homicides for all of 2015. At least 2,702 people have been shot in the city this year, according to a tally kept by the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

On Saturday, the Tribune also published details of shooting incidents involving police officers in the city between 2010 and 2015. The vast majority of those shot in such incidents, the newspaper found, were black men or boys.

Trump has developed his law and order theme into a concerted – if quixotic, given his campaign’s flirtation with the far right – attempt to win African American support. Addressing a largely white audience at a rally in Michigan this month, he said: “At the end of four years, I guarantee you I will get over 95% of the African American vote. What do you lose by trying something new like Trump?”

In Iowa on Saturday, he said: “There are millions of African Americans in this country who have succeeded,” but also said government had failed black communities, with almost 40% of African American children living in poverty.

Trump has also claimed that rival Hillary Clinton is a “bigot” who doesn’t care about minority communities.

Outside the emergency room where Aldridge was pronounced dead on Friday, Jolinda Wade held her sister and spoke for the family as mourners stood in a circle, holding hands and praying.

She told reporters she had participated in the town hall “never knowing that the next day we would be the ones that would actually be living and experiencing it”.

“We’re still going to try to help and empower people like the one who senselessly shot my niece in the head,” she said. “We’re going to try to help these people to transform their minds and give them a different direction.”

The Wade family has been affected by gun violence before. Dwyane’s nephew, Darin Johnson, was shot twice in the leg on the south side in 2012. He recovered. Family members are caring for Aldridge’s baby, who was not hurt in the shooting.